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Kazusato doesn’t think he’s ever actually addressed Ho-zuki Jinpachi by name. To his face, for that matter, and especially not to others. Even when it was just him and his crew, the man had only been called “Asakusa’s leader” or “him.” And on days when they couldn’t be assed to do the extra brainwork of assigning names to loud, irritating faces, then he would simply become known as –
“You know – that guy!”
Only been with Asakusa a couple of days and already, Kazusato thinks he might be starting to get sick of them.
“Onigawara Bombers!” Kokuri adds, in case he hadn’t been clear enough the first time.
“Hmm, yes. Them,” Saragi agrees without any real commitment, which is a Saragi technique all over. With anyone else, it’s something he does to find a hole to dig and exploit, find what it is about the other guy he can use to attack. But with them – Kokuri especially, because he’s fun to mess with sometimes – it’s something he’s started to do out of habit.
“Just somethin’ about the guy I can’t shake,” Kokuri goes on, not the least bit deterred by their impassive faces. “Look – just ask Boss, right? Hasn’t been sitting right with him too how that Ho-zuki guy just moseys up to us and – ”
“Haah?” Kazusato snorts. “Who’s bothering me?”
“Asakusa! Right?”
“Hn.”
“We’re on their turf an’ everything, doing what they asked us to do… Actually, scratch that. We’re done doing what they asked us to do and now they want us to hang around for some lousy fireworks? Nuh-uh. Not me. I don’t know about you guys, but this bad boy is ready to bounce.”
“Hmm.”
In between Kokuri’s spiels of protest and the occasional grunt of agreement from Saragi, Kazusato takes a moment to contemplate. It’s his turn to say something now, now that Kokuri’s passed him the ball and Saragi stands waiting to see which of them would be more fun to side with.
It’s always a tricky thing to play ball with Kokuri, who's brash in a way he and Saragi can’t be bothered to be. Very much unlike them with his way of talking and talking, talking sometimes to hear himself talk, when dead silence would have sufficed.
And then in contrast, there was Saragi who also had quite the mouth on him, but was more calculating about what he chose to publicize. Unlike Kokuri who often said the first thing that went into his mind, Saragi was the type to run through at least four separate thoughts first before thinking to speak any of them into existence.
Kazusato lifts his eyes to the skies and takes a few more moments to think.
His mind wanders.
With the sky now turning into a warm shade of orange, wandering becomes an unavoidable thing. Before he knows it, Kazusato is off entertaining thoughts about the before. As in: before, because this isn’t his first time dealing with a loud mouth and a smartass. Of course Kokuri and Saragi are of a different breed, but handling them is not much different from handling a pair of unruly brothers.
As in, before – once, long ago, there was a time when even the fireworks were scary enough to make him cry. Not anymore. Dust stinging his eyes, smoke in his lungs, loud noises to make you jump in the dark… These were no longer new things to him. Nothing he hadn’t already gone through – before.
Favors exchanged, attempts at friendship and goodwill – and then, inevitably, a knife in his back and the judgment and scorn ringing loud in his ears… Yes, he thinks. Not a single thing about this situation is new to him.
“You’re ready to bounce?” he finally says, eyes half-lidded in a disinterested sort of calm. “Where to? Who says we’re done here?”
“Come on, Boss, my nice guy points are all used up! And no disrespect to you or nothing, you know they couldn’t have done this without you – ”
A snort from Saragi.
“ – without us, but our part in this story is over. Finito. The end!”
Kazusato spares Saragi a glance to see if he had anything else to add to the conversation, but Saragi maintains his silence and suddenly becomes preoccupied with what was left of his water balloons. It’s an idle front, some inconsequential thing to give his hands something to do while he waits for them to make up their minds and briefly, Kazusato considers the humor in Saragi giving these simple festival toys the same depth of attention he usually gave to his dirtied scalpels and bloodied knives.
“Whaddaya say, huh?” Kokuri continues to needle.
Finally, Kazusato sighs. Heavy is the head that wears the mantle of Division Leader and all that. “We are not leaving because we are seeing this job through to the end. What, are we some backalley wise guys who cut a deal and run? Change the rules all on our own because we got bored?”
Neither of them dares to say anything now, but Kazusato graciously grants them a couple of beats to reorient themselves before he continues.
“We’re finished when Asakusa says we’re finished,” he tells them. “That’s finito.”
“Aww, man!”
Saragi turns back to his water balloons.
Kazusato leans back and surveys his team anew.
Personally, he can’t wait to get gone either. Something about the air in Asakusa that’s so hot it’s almost nauseating. Dusty in a way that has him feeling unsettled and restless. Gets him in a certain mood that has him thinking, smelling things he’d have much rather…
He clicks his tongue.
This stupid, fucking place, Kazusato thinks, scowling. This stupid climate that’s a pain in the ass, sticky and warm – and still, he keeps his jacket on. He steals a glance at his crew and takes a morbid comfort in seeing them with all their gear on too, sweat be damned.
Something about this place that has him all out of sorts, has his mind drifting. Something about Ho-zuki Jinpachi, most of all. Kazusato continues to chew on that, not really minding if all he’s doing is repeat Kokuri’s suspicions to himself.
Just something about the guy. Something so irritating about how new and familiar he feels, much like this place. An itch in Kazusato’s brain he no longer has the energy to scratch.
“What a pain…” he mutters.
Kokuri catches his eye and looks like he has something to say about that, but it’s then the Onigawara Bombers decide to make their entrance.
“Afternoon, ya Bastards!” Komagata Masamune greets with a cheer. “Heh! I’ve always wanted to say that.”
“We know. You’ve only been running the same joke all day, Masa-san,” Yogo Doshiro says, rolling his eyes.
Ho-zuki Jinpachi looks at each of the North Bastards in the eye and nods. “Right! Great work at the festival today, boys, couldn’t have done it without you. You guys heading out already?”
Kazusato nods back. “We’ve done our end of the deal. Guess that means we’re all paid up.”
But the Bombers leader crosses his arms and targets each of them with his eyes again, his grin getting wider with every North Bastard he makes eye contact with. Kazusato tries not to sneer. “No you’re not,” he says. “We’re not done here.”
“Hmm?” Saragi says now, stepping in. “Not done here? We set you up. Played along with your little war games. Did everything according to plan.” He leers, tilting his head in that menacing kind of way that would have had weaker men cowering for mercy. “Doesn’t sound like not done to me.”
Ho-zuki Jinpachi takes one solid look at Mad Snake baring his fangs and laughs. “Well, sure. If you look at it that way, then it does mean you’re done. But you missed something.”
As one, all of Akabane Division looks to each other, silently nudging the next guy to speak up and say something. It’s surprising that Kokuri doesn’t even try to get a word in at this moment.
Komagata Masamune spots their serious expressions and laughs. “Drinks, Akabane! It’s time for drinks!” he says. “Gonna loosen you up some in time for the afterparty.”
“Afterparty?” Kokuri says, eyes wide.
“Yeah! Didn’t think we were gonna let you off the hook that easily, huh?”
Beside him, Yogo Doshiro is grumbling. “Told you I wasn’t sure about this, Masa-san…”
Of the three Bombers, it’s this one Kazusato’s had to keep an eye on. Even if they had Ho-zuki Jinpachi’s endorsement, Asakusa’s youngest member had been trying to make it look like he seemed wise to North Bastard right from the drop. All day long, he’d been giving them the stink eye whenever he could, like he was waiting for them to screw up or turn tail and run.
Kazusato keeps his scoff to himself. Let him watch, then. Let him watch a long time.
“Come on, come on, it’s drinks for everybody and I’m paying!” Komagata Masamune continues to cheer, either not minding the silence or deliberately choosing to ignore it. He slings an arm around Kokuri. “Your man Masamune, he’s got his special death brew on for tonight. You don’t wanna miss out!”
“Hey, ease off, pal, I ain’t your buddy!”
“Anyone who survives my special death brew’s a certified friend of mine. House guarantee! Come on, even Rin-chan’ll be there!”
“Who?”
“Rin-chan! You know, our part-timer.”
Yogo Doshiro snorts. “Yeah, who we just hired today. Him and his wacko friends, too.”
“Oi, Doshiro, play nice. They’re just lively guys, that’s all! Kinda on the loud side but who isn’t, they get a little alcohol in ‘em, eh? Although funny thing about that, you know… Rin-chan claims he’s never seen ‘em before in his life.”
“Might be just the alcohol, Masa-san.”
“Yeah, could be! So? What about it? You boys up for some fun?”
“Nah, I’m not – ”
“Kokuri,” Saragi says suddenly, “we’re going.”
“ – early start tomorrow and all tha – what?”
“We’re going,” Saragi says again. “Intel gathering. You’re okay with that, right?”
And Kazusato, he knows when he’s being addressed. He turns to Saragi.
“Said, you’re okay with me and the weasel going?” And then, just to sweeten the deal, he tacks on an extra, “Boss?”
“How many times do I gotta keep telling you people it’s a fox – ”
Perking up right at the mention of that other strange group that showed up at the festival. It's almost funny how predictable Saragi was beginning to get.
What’s also funny is how the other two were starting to look to him more and more for direction, making it like his word was law around here. Kazusato certainly isn’t complaining, but sometimes he has to wonder why they still insist on putting on the charade. “Hmph. Do what you want.”
“That’s the spirit!” Komagata Masamune cheers again. “You boys are in for a real treat. Betcha they don’t make ‘em like this back where you come from, huh?”
This time, Kokuri welcomes the banter, his demeanor doing a complete turnaround now that Kazusato had given them permission to tag along. “Keke! Don’t underestimate the Akabane bladder, pal! We’ve got guts of steel and we’re gonna drink you guys under the table. Eh, Saragi?”
“Hmph. It’s just you, weasel. I will be holding court with… ‘Rin-chan’ and the rest of his unit.”
“Aw, you’re no fun!”
They leave, Masamune pulling them along or the other two letting themselves get dragged with him.
Kazusato slides his eyes to Ho-zuki Jinpachi still standing next to him and hears Yogo Doshiro linger to say, “Sure you’re gonna be okay, Jin-san?”
“Yeah,” his leader says. “Think I’m gonna stay a while. You go on ahead, Doshiro.”
Asakusa’s third nods, then turns to make his exit. But not without his own little side-eye to what… warn him or something? Kazusato smirks and makes sure Asakusa’s young gun sees it.
“Tch!”
Ho-zuki Jinpachi watches him go, then chuckles with a shake of his head. “You’re gonna have to excuse Doshiro. He, uh… let’s just say he’s a ‘stick with what you know’ kinda guy.”
“You mean he doesn’t trust us.”
“Not yet!”
“Whatever.”
It doesn’t have quite the reaction Kazusato is going for because beside him, Ho-zuki Jinpachi is still standing with his arms crossed. He gives him a knowing kind of grin.
Kazusato raises an eyebrow. “What,” he says.
Ho-zuki Jinpachi smiles, radiant and bright, the picture of pretend innocence. “Nothing. Just… you Akabane boys’re some real characters, huh?”
“Haah?”
“Akabane North Bastard!” Ho-zuki Jinpachi crows. “Tough guys, all of ya. But here you are, helpin’ out at our humble little festival anyway.”
Just who the hell is this guy trying to impress? “What, you think this is some kind of favor? We say something, we do it. That’s all.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He laughs, shrugging it off, then claps Kazusato on the shoulder with a solid hand. “That’s all, but it’s enough. I mean it, Doan. Having you guys here for the event helped us out plenty. I appreciate it.”
“Hmph.” Well, if he was going to be that way… “I guess the guys had fun, too.”
Ho-zuki Jinpachi laughs again. “Right! Right, right.” He shakes his head. “Even if I knew they were up to no good at some point. But you put a stop to that, didn’t you?”
“Listen, we had a deal, all right?” No way he was about to let Kokuri and Saragi go off to do their nonsense under his watch.
“I know, an’ I appreciate you being so honest.”
“Huh. That’s not something you just – ”
“Just use to describe a guy like MC Darkness? Ha! Let me be the judge of that!” He must catch the unbelieving look on Kazusato’s face then because he adds, “Aw, it’s not so bad. I don’t think you guys are all that bad, really. You ask me, I think you’re just caught in a bad situation. You, especially.”
“Me? What the fuck would you know about me?”
“Woah, woah, chill! Didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t mean any harm. I’m just calling the play like I see it. Okay?” he says, holding his palms out like he was offering some kind of truce.
“Calling the play like you – do I even want to know what the fuck you’re talking about?”
“Man, you sure don’t spare words, do ya,” Ho-zuki Jinpachi marvels with no small sense of wonder. “You a baseball guy, Doan? Ever play a little catch before?”
Of course the maniac would talk about baseball now. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s the greatest sport in the world, is what I think! It’s got everything to do with everything!”
“Oh, really,” Kazusato replies, not wanting to know. “Do tell.”
Ho-zuki Jinpachi must have never heard a lick of sarcasm in his life. It’s a conclusion Kazusato makes on the spot because Ho-zuki Jinpachi, he seems the type to take everything that’s said to him at face value. Just the guy to blindly trust that everything is being done in fair play and that he would be strong enough to handle things when they went wrong.
It’s a stupid way to live. Yet Kazusato doesn’t try to stop him from speaking; the moment Ho-zuki Jinpachi is given an opportunity, he does tell. “Baseball, you see, it’s a game of outs. Tries and errors. There’s no other sport in the world that lets you screw up more than baseball does. Y’ever realize that?”
Kazusato knows a rhetorical question when he hears it. He stays quiet, sure that the man will go on anyway, with or without his prompting.
He does. “You gotta lose some if you wanna win the whole thing, right? It’s three strikes and you’re out, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the game. It just means you gotta wait a little before it’s your turn to score again.”
Of course Kazusato isn’t totally dumb. He knows what fucking baseball is. And because he knows what baseball is, he can see where their conversation is headed. Still, he lets Ho-zuki Jinpachi continue to say his piece. Maybe he does want to hear what he has to say – or maybe…
Maybe he’s lying in wait to find his way in, find something in whatever Asakusa's leader was telling him to counter and smash into the ground. Asakusa's leader who, like the rest of the world, was so naive and dead-set on believing in the Doan Kazusato he saw and not the Doan Kazusato that was standing right there with him.
It would make the outcome of their encounter so much sweeter.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is – everyone deserves a second chance, right? There’s nobody out there that’s born bad. It’s just a matter of learnin’ and unlearnin’ those behaviors. Least, that’s what I think.”
Now Kazusato spots his opening. “So… what? You’re trying to turn this back on me? Is that what you’re doing? Well, I’m telling you right now: I ain’t having it.” He snarls. “Three strikes, unlearning behaviors. Tch! You think you know all about me, don’t you?”
Ho-zuki Jinpachi hurries to calm him down, but it’s all for show. There’s no real urgency to his tone when he says, “Now, listen! This is just me thinking out loud, you know? There’s nothing you need to do with it. Nothing at all!”
“Fuck that noise. You’re just like everyone else, talking to a guy who doesn’t exist. The fuck do I care about baseball? Why say any of this to me?”
“Because, Doan, I think you’ve got something in you. Something good. It doesn’t look like it now, but trust me. I got a sense for these kinds of things.”
The certainty with which he says it, so confident like he was spitting facts as plain as the side of his face… just who the hell does he think he is?
That’s not the Doan Kazusato I know!
It’s not the first time someone has tried to speak sense into him, talked to him like Doan Kazusato was a flunkie with the wool pulled over his eyes. Like he’d been flying blind this whole time. Like Doan Kazusato didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.
And it’s true, isn’t it? Ever since North Bastard lost their chance to qualify for the DRBs, Kazusato’d been all out of sorts, his mind becoming an endless bog he’d forced himself to trudge through, if only for some vague promise of clarity at the end.
So maybe he’d taken on that deal with the Onigawara Bombers to stall. To buy himself time while he figured things out. Talking feelings with the likes of Kokuri and Saragi was like pulling teeth, so Kazusato stayed right inside his own mind to keep his thoughts company. And now that he’s in Asakusa, where the night is starting to fully set in, it occurs to him…
When was the last time he’d stayed out so late to watch the fireworks?
So long ago that he could still remember how small he’d been back then. Back then, he’d cry at the drop of a hat. Just a small boy caught up in the mix of the big, bad world. Now he’d gotten bigger and it seemed the world had gotten bigger along with him. Bigger, and crueler.
So… what? Was Ho-zuki Jinpachi trying to save him, too?
“Mind your own business,” Kazusato says, making his final warning. “All we did was do what you asked us to. It doesn’t mean we’re friends or that you can talk to me like… like whatever.”
All that posturing, and all that does is cause the other man to break out in laughter. “Ooh, Mister Tough Guy over here! Big bad leader of North Bastard!” he sings, getting on Kazusato’s last nerve. “But listen, who says you gotta do what I tell you, huh?”
“Shut up.”
“You know how I know?”
“I said, shut the fuck up!”
“Up here,” he says, ignoring the outburst. He taps a finger to the side of his eye. “You’re very expressive right around here. Anybody ever tell you that?”
Only one person in his life and he was nobody important. Kazusato sees red, bright and strong and vibrant, present in all the ways he isn’t, and he growls low in his throat. “This is the last time I’ll tell you,” he says. “Mind your own damn business.”
Ho-zuki Jinpachi, very predictably, does not do what he’s told. “People who tell you a thing like that, they’re someone worth keeping around. You should value people like that, you know. Hard to find anyone who’ll tell you things straight to your face anymore.”
“What, you mean someone like you?” Kazusato says, the retort coming out of him before he could think to stop himself.
It gets the other man to laugh again. “It’s a good start!” he says. “For your sake, I hope your guys are the same way.”
“Listen, don’t get it twisted. It’s me that keeps them honest. Not the other way around.”
“Ha! That’s Asakusa’s leader for ya!”
It’s funny, Kazusato thinks. It’s the funniest fucking thing in the world that anyone would even think to hop on that train of thought to describe someone like him. Him, Doan Kazusato! A leader to the likes of Griffin and Mad Snake? The world sure was a more fucked-up place than he thought.
This is the reason, he thinks. This is why he can’t stay fucking still in Asakusa. Never really been able to the whole time he’s been here. “Look, will you just drop it already? I’m not your… your kid brother or whatever you think I am. I’m gone after this, you hear me? My part of the deal’s finished so I don’t have to stay here and take any more of your bullshit.”
He stares at Ho-zuki Jinpachi dead in the eyes, expecting – even daring him – to do something stupid like re-write the terms of their agreement on the spot, try to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do.
But Ho-zuki Jinpachi, Asakusa’s Demon’s Fire, turns out to be an even ballsier man than he gives him credit for. “You see? That’s what I like about you. You don’t back down – and you’re honest.”
“Ha! Honest. What the fuck would I know about being honest?”
“Honest or not, it doesn’t make what I said any less true.” He takes his chance to continue when Kazusato only snorts at him in reply. “Listen. You’re a good guy, Doan. You’re tough and I feel like you’re someone I can trust. You feel me?”
Open your eyes! That’s not the Doan Kazusato I know.
“It’s not such a bad way to be, you know. Being honest. And as long as there’s light in the world, you’re always gonna need the darkness, too. It’s like baseball, right? Can’t win the whole thing without striking out first.”
That’s not what it means to be strong!
Honest, huh… Kazusato clicks his tongue. “Again with the fucking baseball.”
Ho-zuki Jinpachi winks at him. “I’ll get you to come around on it one day, Doan. Just you wait.”
“Do what you want,” he says, repeating the same instructions he’d given to his boys earlier that day. This time, and without meaning to, it comes out more as a challenge and less as an order made out of resignation. “If this is your way of buttering me up so you get us back again for the next festival…”
“Ha! You see right through me. Knew I could count on you!” Ho-zuki Jinpachi grins, bright like the sun, but doesn’t deny the claim. He fishes out a small flask from his pocket. “Now that that’s out of the way… You want some?”
It’s alcohol. At this time of the evening.
Kazusato makes a face.
“Thought so,” the Bombers’ leader agrees with a shrug. “Y’might be better off, actually. This stuff’s hotter than the devil’s backside.” He gives Kazusato another wink and chants a hearty “Bottom’s up!” before taking a long, healthy swig.
“Getting your shots in before the afterparty, huh? I see how it is,” Kazusato remarks.
“Who says there's anything wrong with getting a little drunk before the main event? Not me!”
“Tch. Thought the main event was over already.”
“I see we still have more to teach you about the ways of Asakusa, Doan! I’m willing to teach if you’re willing to learn. How about it?”
“Fuck off.”
“Okay, that’s fair. But hey, about what I said back then – no kidding, we’d genuinely love to have you and your boys back next year.”
“Don’t count on it,” Kazusato retorts, but the thought of having a place he can come back to – confidently, without having to slink his way through to get in – it gets him to shake his head in disbelief.
Asakusa’s leader catches it and grins. “Suit yourself! And don’t be a stranger, huh? Call me something cute next time! You know… like Jin-chan!”
“Haah? You’re trying to convert me into a Bomber now?” Kazusato scoffs. “I still have my pride as Akabane’s leader, you dig? I look like the type to drop my team for just anyone?”
“Not really, no! But it was worth a try!”
The nerve of this guy! So unrelenting and forceful… It’s not like he looks up to him now or anything, but it’s easy to see why the man had so many followers.
This… this Ho-zuki guy. Kazusato continues to roll the name around in his mind some more, see how it sounds to him when he calls him –
Asakusa’s Ho-zuki.
This world, it sure is a big place. This world with guys to keep you entertained for days, guys who were strong enough to match you blow for blow. Good, honest guys who went at you and challenged you, gave it to you straight without a hint of irony. And to think he’d find one of the sort all the way out here in Asakusa.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they ever went up against his team in a rap battle, Kazusato thinks. But in the meantime…
“Hey,” he says, pointing to Ho-zuki’s flask. “You got any more of that left…?”